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• Cannes countdown: favourites for the 2013 Palme d’Or | 05/24/2013
  

  Coen brothers’ take on 1960s New York folk scene and landmark lesbian love story lead the hopefuls

  First Post LAST UPDATED AT 15:24 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  THE 66th Cannes Film Festival reaches its climax on Sunday with the announcement of the winner of the Palme d’Or for best film. Past recipients of the prestigious award include Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Pianist (2002) and according to the New York Times this year’s title could go to any number of contenders. Here are the frontrunners after ten days of screenings:

  Inside Llewyn Davis: Described by France24.com as a “razor-sharp deadpan comedy suffused with sorrow about a struggling folk singer in early-1960s New York”, Inside Llewyn Davis is the latest offering from the Coen brothers and features standout performances from British actress Carey Mulligan and singer-actor Oscar Isaac.

  The Great Beauty: Directed by Italian Paolo Sorrentino, this has been described by one critic as a “sumptuous feast of a film”. Set in Rome, it follows ageing writer Jep Gambardella (played by Toni Servillo) as he tries to recapture his passion for life by visiting some of the city’s finest sights.

  Blue Is the Warmest Colour: Hailed by The Guardian as a “landmark in cinematic depictions of lesbian love and female sexuality”, it stars French actresses Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux (pictured above in Cannes). Called La Vie d’Adele in France, it is directed by Abdellatif Kech and loosely adapted from a steamy “coming out” novel by Julie Maroh.

  Nebraska: This black and white film directed by Alexander Payne (who made the 2011 George Clooney move, The Descendants) is a gentle but searching comic drama about a father and son taking a road-trip through America’s heartland. Featuring Bruce Dern and Will Forte, Nebraska has been praised for its cinematography, score but above all its subject.

  The Past: French film reviewers are raving about Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, which revolves around a couple (an Iranian and a Frenchwoman) going through a messy divorce in Paris. A French language film, The Past is beautifully acted but some critics accuse of it being too introspective and having too tangled a plot.

  Behind the Candelabra: Steven Soderbergh’s film of the Liberace story stars Michael Douglas as the entertainer and Matt Damon as his long-time partner. Critics have been raving about Douglas’s perfomance on a role he described as a fabulous gift after coming through treatment for cancer.   · 

  Cannes 2013

  Pulp Fiction

  Cannes palme d’Or

  palme d’Or 2013

  Inside Llewyn Davis

  The Great Beauty

  Blue Is the Warmest Colour

  Nebraska

  The Past

• Drone clampdown as Obama rethinks US terror strategy | 05/24/2013
  

  'Boundless' war on terror must come to an end says President as he seeks to balance freedom and security

  Talking Point LAST UPDATED AT 14:48 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  BARACK OBAMA has insisted that the US can no longer mount "a boundless global war on terror" and has sought to redefine the country's counter-terrorism strategy as it prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, declaring that "America is at a crossroads".

  In a speech on Thursday Obama pledged to cut back on drone attacks and reaffirmed his desire to come good on his election promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. According to The Times, the speech "amounted to a doctrine for the post-Afghanistan era".

  The New York Times concurred, and described the address as "the most important statement on counter-terrorism policy since the 2001 attacks".

  It added: "For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future."

  The speech was an attempt to balance a requirement to protect US citizens with the need to adhere to the country's belief in freedom, said Greg Sergeant in the Washington Post.

  "Obama's speech was less a substantial break from current policy than it was a newly ambitious effort to recalibrate policies on drones and the detention of terror suspects with the specific goal of reconciling them with American values," he wrote.

  On the controversial subject of drones, Obama defended their use but, after introducing a new set of legal checks, added: "To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance."

  The number of drone attacks is set to be reduced, and special courts will rule on targeted assassinations using the devices. Future missions will also be overseen by the US military rather than the CIA.

  "The president, who currently has to personally sign off on targeted drone strikes outside the US, hopes the increased oversight will help bring his controversial programme of killings out of the legal shadows," said The Guardian.

  Not everyone was convinced by the President’s vows. Obama "has a long record of broken promises and misleading rhetoric on civil liberties, and it would be naive to assume that he'll follow through on everything he said on Thursday," wrote Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic.

  The speech was a battle between Obama's two personas, the "public idealist" and the "tight-lipped commander in chief", claimed Garrett Epps also on the Atlantic. They "duelled uneasily" in the speech at the National Defense University, he claimed.

  And although Epps concluded that Obama the idealist shaded it, neither side could claim total victory. As the NYT wrote: "Republicans contended that Mr Obama was declaring victory prematurely and underestimating an enduring danger, while liberals complained that he had not gone far enough in ending what they see as the excesses of the Bush era." · 

  Obama

  Barack Obama

  barack obama drones

  barack obama terrorism

  obama on drones

  War on terror

  Afghanistan

• Viral world: what caught fire on the internet this week | 05/24/2013
  

  Conversations with Coco, the enmity between a dog and a kangaroo plus an extremely good looking man

  First Post LAST UPDATED AT 15:57 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  OUR weekly round-up of the crème de le crème of the web – from memes to videos to blogs. Readers with suggestions for next week's round-up should contact Dina Rickman at The Week.

  ‘SHE’S NOT YOUR WIFE, SHE’S THE PRINCESS’
  Kids say the funniest things – including Matt Clarke’s two-year-old daughter, Coco. In this video Clarke re-enacts a recent conversation with Coco, but a fully grown man plays his daughter. The footage has received more than one million views in three days:

  
  ANIMAL MAGIC
  The YouTube user who uploaded this video of a kangaroo and dog wrestling described the pair as “best mates”. But in this clip, they seem more like frenemies:

  
  ANGEL FACED
  Move over Omar Borkan Al Gala – the man deemed too sexy for Saudi Arabia - there's a rival in town, who has laid claim to the title of best-looking man on the planet. Meet Ahmed Angel, the mysterious male model who’s taken the internet by storm.

  
  STORM CHASERS
  More than seven million people have seen this video of the Oklahoma tornado captured by Basehunters. It is believed 24 people died in this week's storm.

  
  MUM’S THE WORD
  There have been calls for a medal for the mother-of-two who dared to confront the two Woolwich assailants in a bid to talk them down. Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a 48-year-old cubscout leader from Cornwall, explains her bravery in the video below:

   · 

  viral world

  Matt Clarke

  Omar Borkan Al Gala

  Ahmed Angel

  Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

  Oklahoma tornado

• Our city is no inferno, Manila boss tells Dan Brown | 05/24/2013
  

  New blockbuster novel depicts Filipino capital as hellish sewer but citizens think it's more like heaven

  One-Minute Read LAST UPDATED AT 13:17 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  AUTHOR Dan Brown's latest book has not only been savaged for its questionable prose: it has now incurred the wrath of an entire nation.
   
  In the new blockbuster novel Inferno, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, also the protagonist of Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code, has a female doctor sidekick, Sienna Brooks. When the good doctor travels to the Philippines on a humanitarian mission her senses are assaulted in Manila.

  Not only are there the "wails of crying babies and the stench of human excrement" in the Filipino capital but also "six-hour traffic jams, suffocating pollution, and a horrifying sex trade, whose workers consisted primarily of young children". Poor Sienna considers she has "run through the gates of hell" and can't wait to leave the place.

  But the city has hit back at its description. Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Francis Tolentino says that, far from being a hellish place, it is "an entry to heaven".
   
  In an open letter to Brown, Tolentino tells the American author he and his fellow citizens are "greatly disappointed by your inaccurate portrayal of our beloved metropolis. We are displeased of how you have used Manila as a venue and source of a character's breakdown and trauma, much more her disillusionment in humanity."

  Rejecting the idea that Manila is the den of iniquity portrayed in Inferno, Tolentino says Manila is "a centre of Filipino spirit, faith and hope" and its citizens are "more than capable of exemplifying good character and compassion towards each other, something that your novel has failed to acknowledge".

  As the Daily Mail points out, it's not the first time Manila and its 12 million people have taken umbrage at the city's artistic depiction. In 1999, the then President  of the Philippines, Joseph Estrada, banned Hollywood actress Claire Danes from entering the country after she said in an interview that filming Brokedown Palace in Manila had not been an enjoyable experience because the city was "smelly, weird and full of rats". · 

  Dan Brown

  Inferno

  Manila

  The Da Vinci Code

  Metropolitan Manila Development Authority

  Francis Tolentino

  Claire Danes

  Brokedown Palace

• Has gold had its day? Or should you keep holding it? | 05/24/2013
  

  Despite the falling gold price, precious metal coins continue to do a roaring trade

  Personal Finance Jane Lewis LAST UPDATED AT 13:06 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  GOLDBUGS have every reason to feel a little smug. On the back-foot since April – when gold suffered its worst one-day crash in 30 years – their faith in "the yellow metal" seemed vindicated by this week's stock market rout. As the giddy Nikkei plunged seven per cent, prodigal investors led astray by more exotic investments rushed back to gold's safe embrace. Perhaps it hasn't lost its haven status after all.

  That had certainly seemed the case when, after a parabolic run that saw the value leap an extraordinary 500 per cent in a decade, the price started stuttering last year amid pronouncements, from SocGen and others, that "the end of the gold era is nigh".

  What changed? Broadly, a sense that apocalypse had been averted. Having lost its status as end-of-the-world insurance, gold was just another unwanted metal, as vulnerable as any other to the slowing Chinese growth story. The Armageddon trade was over.

  Gold has always run on long cycles. But history suggests that, when sentiment changes, the price can move rapidly: it almost halved, for instance, in 1975-76. And the recent surge of "paper gold" speculation – fuelled by the lorry-loads of cash heading into Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) – has exacerbated the threat of savage price swings.

  According to ETF Trends, around 300 tons of bullion was sold in the first four months of the year. That's a lot of 400oz bars. Gold sceptics argue that if central banks in Europe are forced into a fire-sale to pay off their sovereign debts, we could see even more dramatic falls.
   
  It's a strange thing gold, stirring up emotion like no other asset class. Its legend as a store of value makes it the favoured currency of everyone from German pensioners (haunted by the hyper-inflation of the 1920s), through Indian bridegrooms, to the far extremes of the US Tea Party movement.

  Conspiracy theory and gold fanaticism go hand in hand. It was the CIA wot done it, was a common response on online forums following the April price crash.
   
  But on other side of the fence, feelings run almost as high. "Rational" investors view gold as an infuriating relic of medieval finance, which doesn't yield anything, is expensive to store and is by no means as secure as people think.  

  Of course, the rationalists who wrote off gold in the 1990s ended up with a lot of egg on their faces. Chief among them, Gordon Brown – still flagellated for flogging off half the nation's reserves when gold was at a 20-year low below $300/oz (known for ever more as "Brown's bottom"). For him, there was the slow-burning torture of watching the price climb higher and higher until it reached a reputation-shredding $1,920/oz last year.

  So, is gold really on a downward trajectory, and should you keep holding it?  One reason for recent price falls is the belief that the splurge of central bank money-printing hasn't had the inflationary effect feared. If you think the jury's still out on that one, you'll probably want to hang on. The rule of thumb is to allocate between five and 15 per cent of your portfolio – it's up to you where on the fear gauge you place yourself.

  Some reckon that gold miners are currently so unloved that they must be worth a speculative punt. But if you're holding gold as a safety play, I'd steer clear. Ditto ETFs. Armies of small investors appear to have concluded that the main reassurance of gold lies in its tangibility and portability.

  A remarkable sub-plot of the falling gold price is that sales of precious metal coins have continued to do a roaring trade. Sovereigns (especially pretty Victorian ones) and Britannias make particularly good presents for children: as tangible tokens of how money and markets work. Wet the baby's head with one and, whatever happens to its value, you can later take the opportunity of boring the little nipper rigid with your educational theories of market psychologies and monetary values.

  You might observe that, when it comes to gold, it's difficult to shake thousands of years of history, legend and tradition. Or that, pace Gordon Brown, there is never "an end to boom and bust". Which means that even when gold's down and completely lacking in lustre, it's never out. · 

  gold

  precious metal coins

  Nikkei

  Exchange-Traded Funds

  US Tea Party movement

  CIA

  Gordon Brown

• Gareth Bale must quit Spurs this summer says Desailly | 05/24/2013
  

  World Cup winner says Welsh star should move to a new club with a 'culture of success'

  One-Minute Read LAST UPDATED AT 12:20 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  GARETH BALE has been urged to quit Spurs this summer and join a club with a "culture of success" by former World Cup-winning player Marcel Desailly, after the London club failed to qualify for the Champions League.

  Spurs are desperate to hold onto the Welsh winger, who was voted player and young player of the year by the Professional Footballers' Association and scored 26 goals during the campaign. But the Daily Telegraph says that by finishing fifth in the Premier League and only qualifying for the Europa League Spurs were "opening the door for Europe's biggest clubs to make a bid for the 23-year-old Welshman".

  Earlier this week Bale admitted it was "very disappointing" to finish outside the top four, but hinted that he could be persuaded to stay at Spurs, who are reportedly prepared to pay him £150,000 a week.

  Now Desailly has urged Bale to jump ship rather than stay in London and has taken a swipe at his current club. The former AC Milan and Chelsea defender told BBC Wales: "He should just go. Tottenham will not give him the opportunity to play at a very high level."

  Desailly, a member of France's World Cup-winning team, said: "He needs to discover, as [David] Beckham has done, that an English guy or a Welsh guy has the capacity to export himself. It's not a matter of money because he has [money] where he is at Tottenham – it's just the experience."
  He said that Bale should aspire to "play at a very high level at a club that has the culture of victory, a club that has trophies in the cupboard – not one or two, but plenty".

  Desailly urged Bale to take on new challenges. "To experience playing with other big players, to be maybe a second choice. To face difficulty, a new language for his family. It's a real change of life and an approach to life as a human being and as a soccer player." · 

  Gareth Bale

  Spurs

  Marcel Desailly

  World Cup

  Champions League

  Professional Footballer's Association

  Premier League

  Europa League

• 'Near-perfect' Bayern Munich ready for European crown | 05/24/2013
  

  German champions are favourites but Borussia Dortmund quietly confident in all-German Champions League Final at Wembley

  Preview Bill Mann LAST UPDATED AT 11:57 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  THERE'S no doubt who the underdogs will be in Saturday's all-German UEFA Champions League final – Borussia Dortmund, who take on the all-conquering Bayern Munich at Wembley.

  Borussia finished 25 points behind champions Bayern in the Bundesliga, although their two league encounters both ended in 1-1 draws.

  Bayern are on one of the most extraordinary streaks seen for years in European football. They lost just once in the Bundesliga, a 2-1 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen in October, while their only reverses in the Champions League were a shock defeat away at FC BATE Borisov of Belarus in the group stage and a 2-0 loss at home to Arsenal. The latter was the catalyst for Arsenal to relaunch their stuttering season but the defeat mattered little to Bayern, who had won the last-16 first leg 3-1 at the Emirates.

  Then there's the  final of the DFB–Pokal Cup (the German equivalent of the FA Cup) in which Bayern take on Stuttgart on Saturday week, a match that if all goes to plan will see the Munich club pull off an unprecedented treble.

  At the end of such a dominant season it's no surprise that Bayern are feeling confident, a self-belief encapsulated by international midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who is not just after silverware. "We've taken a massive stride towards perfection and we're aiming for a perfect performance in the final," said Schweinsteiger. "For me, the decisive factor will be everyone working hard and running for the others when we don't have the ball. If we play to our potential, it's very hard for anyone to win against us."

  Bayern's confidence has increased with the news that Dortmund's influential midfielder Mario Goetze is out of the final with a hamstring injury. "When players like Goetze drop out, maybe the team gets a little weaker," said Schweinsteiger.

  But could Bayern's bullishness be their undoing? Dortmund may have been off the pace in the Bundesliga but they were the only club to reach the semi-final of the Champions League unbeaten. Initially drawn in the ‘Group of Death', Dortmund negotiated their way past Ajax, Manchester City and Real Madrid, and then  overcame Shakhtar Donetsk and Malaga in the knockout phase. Drawn against Real Madrid in the semi-final, the Germans dismantled the Spanish giants 4-1 before losing the second leg 2-0.

  They also have in their side Robert Lewandowski, whose ten goals are second only to the 12 scored by Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo in this season's Champions League.

  Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp believes his side have grown in strength and confidence with each passing match. "The way the team played in the group stage was pretty surprising," he said. "It showed we could compete with the strongest teams in Europe or even achieve more against them."
  Klopp is quietly confident ahead of Saturday's final, dismissing as an irrelevance Bayern's dominance in the Bundesliga this season. "The trick is to treat it like a normal game but execute it in a special way," he said. "We will do that, and that will be decisive." · 

  UEFA Champions League

  Borussia Dortmund

  Bayern Munich

  Bayer Leverkusen

  Champions League

  FC BATE

  DFB=Pokal Cup

  Stuttgart

• Sally Bercow's McAlpine tweet was libellous, judge rules | 05/24/2013
  

  Speaker's wife 'disappointed' by High Court verdict as solicitor claims case should act as a 'warning' to tweeters

  One-Minute Read LAST UPDATED AT 11:54 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  SALLY BERCOW today said she was “surprised and disappointed” after the High Court ruled a tweet she wrote about Lord McAlpine last year was libellous.

  McAlpine, the former Conservative Party treasurer, was the "leading politician" wrongly linked to paedophilia claims at the Bryn Estyn boys' home in north Wales last year following a bungled Newsnight investigation. While he was not named on the BBC TV programme, McAlpine was then identified by Twitter users, including Bercow.

  Bercow had previously apologised for the tweet but maintained it was foolish rather than libellous. She had also accused McAlpine's lawyers of being "ambulance chasers" and "big bullies" and claimed that the legal action against her is "totally politically motivated" (she does not let being married to the Conservative Speaker stop her supporting Labour).

  But today Mr Justice Tugendhat said the November 2012 tweet was an allegation of guilt", Press Gazette notes. "I find that the tweet meant in its natural and ordinary defamatory meaning that the claimant was a paedophile who was guilty of sexually abusing boys living in care,” he said.

  Following Tugendhat’s ruling, McAlpine's solicitor Andrew Reid said the case should act as a “warning” to social network users. "Lord McAlpine is pleased with Mr Justice Tugendhat's finding that Mrs Bercow's tweet was highly defamatory. Apologies previously received from Mrs Bercow did not concede that her tweet was defamatory. Clearly she must now accept this fact,” he said.

  Bercow, who agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement to McAlpine in the wake of the judgment, said she would "accept the ruling as the end of the matter". She went on: "I remain sorry for the distress I have caused Lord McAlpine and I repeat my apologies."

  The BBC last year agreed to pay Lord McAlpine £185,000 plus costs in the wake of the Newsnight report. ITV reached a £125,000 settlement after making similar allegations. · 

  Sally Bercow

  Sally bercow lord mcalpine

  sally bercow lord mcalpine tweet

  Twitter

  libellous

  sally bercow tweet about lord mcalpine

  was sally bercow's tweet libellous

• Pros and cons of mini-bonds: what the experts think | 05/24/2013
  

  Is it worth betting on the Jockey Club and and the new wave of mini-bonds? There are drawbacks

  Personal Finance LAST UPDATED AT 11:11 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  WHEN the Jockey Club was faced with a £45m bill for a new grandstand at Cheltenham it hit upon the solution of launching a bond to help pay for it.

  It's certainly been a favourite with the punters, says James Moore in The Independent. The club, whose racecourses include Cheltenham, Newmarket and Aintree, reached its target of raising £15m in just over three weeks – and has extended the offer to 28 May to meet demand. Should you rush to catch it?
   
  Given derisory returns on savings accounts, the terms look tempting. The five-year bond promises an annual return of 7.75% (4.75% in cash and 3% in "racing rewards" such as tickets and hospitality). You can invest anything between £2,000 and £100,000 and, although you can't put the bond in an Isa (individual savings account), it can be held in a Sipp (self-invested personal pension) where the interest can grow tax-free. What's not to like?
   
  Mainly the risk, says Jonathan Eley in FT Money. Bond markets as a whole are probably in bubble territory and "mini-bonds" – of the sort the Jockey Club has just launched – look particularly vulnerable. The market has been growing like topsy. Capita, which has acted as administrator for many issues, reckons its size has rocketed from £90m in 2012 to £1bn this year and could hit a whopping £8bn by 2017.
   
  Momentum has been driven by an eclectic bunch of companies. John Lewis, Hotel Chocolat, King of Shaves and the upmarket hotels specialist, Mr and Mrs Smith, are among those who have launched successful issues. The private hospital and gym group, Nuffield Health, is currently touting a five-year bond paying a headline 6%.
   
  But while it's easy to see why these cash-raisings are attractive to companies, there are abundant pitfalls for investors. It may surprise some to learn that there's not much of a safety net for mini-bonds. The issue process is largely unregulated and, if a company hits financial difficulties and defaults on payments, mini-bonds are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Act.  
   
  Another massive drawback is that there is no secondary market for them. Mini-bonds are "non-transferable", which means you're locked in for the duration. For me, that rings immediate alarm bells, says Eley. "I'm inherently mistrustful of any investment that doesn't allow me to change my mind."
   
  Mini-bonds pay higher rates than bank accounts "precisely because they do contain an element of risk", says Moira O'Neill in Investors Chronicle. The basic judgment you make as an investor is whether a company's prospects are sound enough to see you through the bond's duration. You might well take the call that companies like the John Lewis Partnership or the Jockey Club look safe enough. But "even supposedly strong and secure companies can get into financial difficulties". Buying the debt of a single company is thus always a high-risk approach – especially if you're locked into the investment.
   
  If you're an income-hungry investor keen on corporate bonds, a safer approach – with a built-in ejector seat should you need one – is to go for tradeable ones listed on the London Stock Exchange's Order book for Retail Bonds (ORB), says Adrian Lowcock of Hargreaves Lansdown on Citywire.
   
  An even safer strategy is to spread your risk by choosing a fund that invests across the corporate bond market. Adrian Lowcock likes Jupiter Strategic Bond, which yields 5.4% after costs. You might not get free tickets to Aintree, but you may sleep better at night.  
   
  This article appears in the 25 May 2013 edition of The Week. · 

  mini-bonds

  Jockey Club

  Capita

  John Lewis

  Hotel Chocolat

  King of Shaves

  Mr and Mrs Smith

  John Lewis Partnership

  Adrian Lowcock

  London Stock Exchange's Order book for Retail Bonds

  Hargreaves Lansdown

  Aintree

  Jupiter Strategic Bond

• Britain 'nearly ran out of natural gas' | 05/24/2013
  

  Senior energy official suggests UK had only six hours' supply left in March – and now prices will increase

  One-Minute Read LAST UPDATED AT 10:59 ON Fri 24 May 2013

  BRITAIN came within six hours of running out of natural gas in March, a senior energy official has told the Financial Times.

  "We really only had six hours' worth of gas left in storage as a buffer," Rob Hastings said. "If it had run any lower it would have meant ... interruptions to supply."

  • See The Business for The Week's daily news round-up

  Hastings, director of energy and infrastructure at the Crown Estate, which owns the rights to gas storage sites under the UK, also backed up the midweek claim from energy supplier SSE that fuel prices are set to soar because of increased wholesale costs."We are likely to find gas prices rise by a lot in a year," he said.

  His claim that natural gas nearly ran out highlights the risk of supply shortages amid declining domestic production and a growing reliance on imports.
  Three factors led to the shortage of gas in March: the dwindling supply from the North Sea, the limited size of the UK's gas storage facilities (at full capacity, Britain can hold a supply of 15 days compared with more than 100 days in France and Germany), and the coldest March in 50 years.

  But not everyone agrees with Hastings that Britain came so close to disaster. Nick Winser, executive director of National Grid, told the FT: "It is true that there wasn't a huge amount of storage left – but there never is at the end of winter. The UK has low storage levels by international standards, but there is a large diversity of [supply] sources. Our gas supply resilience is quite substantial."

  He added that rising prices in March attracted supplies from other sources. · 

  natural gas

  six hours' supply

  Rob Hastings

  senior energy official

  Financial Times

  director of energy and infrastructure

  Crown Estate

  North Sea

  Nick Winser

  National Grid

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• Freshly Pressed: Friday Faves | 05/24/2013

  This week, we turn up three very different Freshly Pressed posts united by their incisive exploration of unexplored, long forgotten, or unexpected experiences, experiences that have been made somehow peripheral by time, geography, or culture. They’re posts you’ve responded to, and that we hope you’ll find resonant. Notes on Email I started to think how […]

• War and Life Afterwards: An Interview with Brian Castner | 05/22/2013

  We’re honored that Brian Castner, Iraq War veteran and author of The Long Walk, makes his official online home right here at WordPress.com. Brian’s history and work are fascinating, as are the writing and photographs he shares on his blog. We asked Brian a few questions about his background, his book, his blogging philosophy, and […]

• Customizing Comet: Beau and Arrow Events | 05/20/2013

  Who doesn’t love “Before and After” home improvement shots? It’s always amazing to see how just a couple of changes, like a coat of paint or a quick do-it-yourself project, can transform a living space dramatically. It’s no different when it comes to WordPress.com blog themes, in which a little customization can go a long […]

• Freshly Pressed: Friday Faves | 05/17/2013

  An ode to a father, a story of growing up with two mothers, a request for a cloak of visibility, and a reflection on goodbyes. Here are four Freshly Pressed standouts from this week — all quite personal pieces that have resonated with many readers. Go ahead and dive in: Why I Don’t Diet — […]

• New Theme: Snap | 05/16/2013

  Happy Theme Thursday! Sharing and managing your work online should be easy, and today I’m thrilled to announce a new theme from our friends at The Theme Foundry that helps you do just that! Snap is a responsive, lightweight, and minimalist theme that makes it easy to feature your projects. Snap’s clean grid based blog […]

• Widget Visibility and You | 05/15/2013

  Since the dawn of time, humankind has yearned for control. While we can’t give you more control over most of your life, we can give you more control over your widgets. And today, with the new widget visibility tool, you can configure your widgets to be shown or hidden only on certain pages. Widgets are […]

• Websites for the Greater Good: Non-Profits on WordPress.com | 05/14/2013

  All kinds of organizations make their home on WordPress.com: small businesses, municipalities, religious organizations, schools, community groups. We also provide an online HQ for quite a few non-profits, from the global to the hyperlocal. They turn to WordPress.com for an easy-to-use, low cost solution that gets them an effective web presence without diverting thousands of dollars […]

• Five Minutes with Philip Arthur Moore | 05/13/2013

  Every few weeks, we’re sitting down with an Automattician to help you get to know the people who work behind the scenes to build new features, keep Automattic running, and make WordPress.com the best it can be. This week, we’re very pleased to introduce you to Mr. Philip Arthur Moore: Theme Broker, global nomad, and […]

• A Special Sunday: A Mix of Mother’s Day Blogs | 05/12/2013

  In some parts around the world, this Sunday is dedicated to the mothers out there. For Mother’s Day, we’ve rounded up sites on motherhood, parenting, and family. On WordPress.com, you’ll discover mothers on all paths: new moms, stay-at-home-moms, single moms, mothers who are full-time writers, and more. (Even mommy men, as you’ll see below.) We […]

• Freshly Pressed: Friday Faves | 05/10/2013

  This week’s three selections address some of our favorite topics: reading and writing. If you’re looking for inspiring and thought-provoking posts, you’re in luck. From the hunger that develops when a reader can’t find the time to read, to the power of the dictionary and your own memories, we’ve got something for everyone. We are […]

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Feed: Netvibes Blog

• Maintenance: some minor disruption of service expected | 05/23/2013

  To ensure an ever better service, we’re going to perform large database operations and do some maintenance work on our servers. This maintenance is scheduled for Tuesday 05/28 morning (5:30am CET) and should not exceed 4 hours. Analytics for Netvibes Premium will not be available during that period (though data will still be collected). Thanks [...]

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• Important Update: Twitter 1.1 API and your Netvibes account | 05/03/2013

  IF YOU’RE USING THE TWITTER APP ON YOUR NETVIBES BASIC DASHBOARD, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY. Starting Monday, May 6, due to Twitter’s new API policy, you’ll need to have a Twitter account linked to Netvibes Basic to continue using Twitter apps and searches from your dashboard. Twitter will require user authentication and rate-limiting, which [...]

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  1. Twitter widget update
  2. Important scheduled update: Netvibes introduces a new dimension: Multiple Personalized Pages
  3. New Twitter widget update includes OAuth support

• Feature Spotlight: New UWA2, now powering the core of Netvibes.com | 03/21/2013

  A lot of developers are using our UWA (Universal Web App API) to build simple web widgets. But did you know that the core of Netvibes.com–dashboards and apps–is now coded using UWA2, our latest version? Since 2007, UWA has pioneered the concept of “write once, deploy everywhere” enabling developers to create simple universal web widgets [...]

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  1. Feature Spotlight: Push Publishing, instantly send updates to your team
  2. A New Netvibes for iPad: Towards a Unified User Experience
  3. Feedback: A Few Words About The New Tab Navigator

• Agencies:Now you can roll your own social tool | 03/18/2013

  There are always new social tools showing up. But they are made by others. But what if you could design your own? Made exclusively by your agency. For years Netvibes has powered custom social dashboards and analytics for top agencies and global brands. Today, at The Advertising Research Foundation re:think and Social Media World Forum [...]

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  1. Is your dashboard running slow? 3 Common Myths About Social Analytics – and How to Fix Them!
  2. New Netvibes Premium Dashboards Help Global Agencies Monitor Real-Time Brand Conversations and Share Industry Expertise
  3. Netvibes Social Pack In The Press

• Live Dashboard: SMWF | 03/15/2013

  #SMWF is the leading social media & digital marketing event that connects marketers, digital brand managers, agencies and social tools and platforms. It’s a showcase of best practice in social media marketing strategies. It will take place in London, between the 18th and 19th of March, and for those of you not fortunate enough to [...]

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• Easily migrate from Google Reader to Netvibes | 03/14/2013

  As you may have heard, Google has decided to shut down its Reader service on July the 1st. Good news: you don’t need to look for an alternative, Netvibes is the perfect home for all your RSS feeds, and more. Judging by the increase in traffic since the announcement,  it’s safe to say that most of you [...]

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  1. Move your feeds from Bloglines and other feed readers to Netvibes
  2. Welcome Yourminis users
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• Live Dashboard: South By Southwest (SXSW) 2013 | 03/07/2013

  If you’re a fan of music, indie films and emerging technologies, Austin will definitely be the place to be in the forthcoming days. Between March 8 and 17, the capital of Texas will hold the famous South by Southwest (SXSW) conferences & festival. Fostering creative and professional growth alike, SXSW is the premier destination for [...]

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• Feature Spotlight: Push Publishing, instantly send updates to your team | 02/20/2013

  One of the most praised features of Netvibes Premium is “Push Publishing”. Imagine being able to propagate live content to your teams or clients, through your dashboard in custom tabs, Web apps, automated alerts or emails. Let’s take a real life example: you work at an agency specialized in the wine industry and you use [...]

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• New Real-Time Search Streams: When everything that matters flows to you… | 02/08/2013

  …there’s no need to search anymore. You’ll already know it. This is something that will change the world of search forever. In our ongoing quest to help you dashboard, monitor and analyze everything, we started to rethink search and what search means on the real-time Web. The traditional workflow is to type in a keyword [...]

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  2. New Facebook Search & Compare Trends
  3. Netvibes now fully integrated with Google Search

• Live Dashboard: Social Media Strategies Summit 2013 | 02/01/2013

  The Social Media Strategies Summit has been the place to be for social marketers over the past two years: over three full days, providing an interactive learning environment, keynote talks from influential names in social media marketing, more than 40 learning sessions, nine workshops on varying topics and much more! It will take place in [...]

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